OCS UK & Ireland is a leading facilities management company with 50,000+ colleagues and a turnover in excess of £2bn. We deliver innovative, award-winning services within facilities management, hard services, cleaning, security and catering.
Our mission is to make people and places the best they can be for our colleagues, customers and the communities we serve. Our commitment to doing business the right way is rooted in our TRUE values - Trust, Respect, Unity, and Empowerment.
Why Work for OCS?
✅Award-Winning Employer: Ranked 36th on Glassdoor’s Best Companies to Work For 2025 — we value and motivate our people.
Digital Learning: The OCS Academy offers digital courses and resources to help you build skills and grow your career.
Retail Perks With our Hapi app, you can gain access to exclusive discounts, rewards and wellbeing resources.
Professional Growth: 600+ live learners across UK&I — Empowering colleagues with further development and qualifications!
Flexible Pay: Access a portion of earned wages before payday with our Wagestream App! (Contract Specific)
Reporting to the Head of Procurement, the Category Manager will be accountable for multi-million-pound categories of spend covering various areas including, but not limited to indirect procurement. Additionally, the Category Manager will build and maintain strong relationships with our supply chain partners and be responsible for evaluating suppliers, products, and services, negotiating supplier agreements, managing and reporting on cost reduction.
Functional
- Create and execute a category management plan to reduce total cost, improve quality of supply and mitigate risk within the supply chain.
- Regular supplier engagement and management; building strategic, value adding relationships and driving performance through data driven management and relationship building.
- Managing and running end-to-end sourcing activities with a commitment to cost reduction and continuous improvement.
- Identifying, evaluating, negotiating and contracting with new suppliers.
- Being a trusted commercial partner, working with key stakeholders to support the category plan.
- Regular benchmarking of current inputs, services and suppliers to ensure our supply chain is delivering maximum value and innovation.
- Lead initiatives including rationalisation to increase spend compliance and concentration with preferred suppliers, delivering improved efficiencies and driving category maturity.
- Being a business partner to the relevant sectors and business units, always promoting the Procurement department and providing internal customer focus to support the organisation.
- Work with internal stakeholders to ensure that quality, service and client requirements are considered and applied when negotiating commercial value.
- Form strong, productive relationships with both the business and the supply base ensuring the UK and Ireland business is the customer of choice leading to business growth and profitability.
- Delivering cost reduction through procurement activities as well as mitigating inflation to improve EDITDA performance.
- Supporting revenue generation by supporting on customer bids and opportunities.
- Responsible for negotiating and delivering procurement synergy targets on M&A activity.
- Supporting transformation within the Procurement team and implementing change management throughout the organisation
- Provide market and supplier insight, expertise and knowhow to the organisation through regular reporting
- Monitor compliance with ethical practices and standards that apply to supply chains taking appropriate actions in the event of detecting any breaches by colleagues or other stakeholders
- Support the roles and functions of internal partners in areas such as compliance, audit, legal etc and encourage their support in establishing ethical behaviours and cultures
- Manage internal and external stakeholders and communicate standards and identify and eliminate bribery, corruption and fraud in supply chains and take appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breaches of standards
- Manage internal and external stakeholders and communicate CSR and sustainability standards (ISO14000; ISO26000; ISO20400) identifying any alleged breach of standards and taking appropriate actions
- Manage internal and external stakeholders and communicate Modern Slavery standards e.g. UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 or equivalent international standard, identifying any alleged breach of standards and taking appropriate actions
- Comply with the CIPS Code of Conduct by enhancing and protecting the standard of the profession, maintain the highest standard of integrity in all business relationships, promoting the eradication of unethical business relationships, enhancing the proficiency and stature of the profession, ensuring compliance with laws and regulations.
- Monitor the work of stakeholders to ensure that the codes of ethics in procurement and supply are upheld and to escalate to senior management any suspected breach.
- Comply with ethical practices when sourcing goods or services for the UK and Ireland business.
General
- Avoid conflict of interests between personal interests and the interests of the UK & Ireland group.
- Exercise independent judgment, reasonable care, skill and diligence when carrying out their duties.
- Act in good faith and promote the long-term success of each company within the UK & Ireland group for the benefit of all members and wider stakeholders.
- Adhere to and promote the UK & Ireland group’s policies on equality & diversity, information security, health and safety and data protection in the performance of their duties and the management of the departmental functions reporting into them
- Support and promote the UK & Ireland group’s sustainability plans and policies, including the Carbon Management Plan, and carry out duties in a resource effective way, recognizing the shared responsibility of minimizing negative environmental impacts wherever possible.
Qualifications & Experience
- Commercially focused with a proven track record of cost reduction and a strong commercial mindset to all activity.
- Clear understanding and experience in procuring goods and services.
- Category management experience.
- Results driven with exceptional negotiation skills.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Demonstrable knowledge of owning supplier management and performance measurement.
- Strong project management skills including cross-functional team management
- A strong negotiator who understands TCO and utilising SRM to achieve best value
- Ability to build sustainable and productive relationships with suppliers
Desirable
- CIPS qualification
- Previous experience within the FM industry within a Procurement role.
If you are interested in joining a business that encourages professional development, career progression and the chance to work with inspirational people then please click apply and register your interest! You can also sign up to our job alerts when registering which will notify you when other suitable vacancies are available.
We are an equal opportunities employer and rely on a diverse workforce with a broad range of knowledge, skills, and backgrounds to deliver our goals. We offer an inclusive and welcoming environment and actively encourage applications from all individuals regardless of race, gender, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or age.
